UK's National Grid consults on ways to deal with low power supplies

LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) - National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) launched a consultation on Friday on whether the measures it uses to deal with Britain's low power supplies could be extended for 2016/17 and 2017/18.

Britain is facing the tightest winter power supplies in a decade mostly due to power plant closures, although measures have been taken to ensure electricity meets demand.

National Grid said it had measures in place to cope with tighter margins, including a scheme to encourage utilities to make idle capacity available and paying offices and factories to cut power use during winter, but these were only agreed for use last winter and the coming winter.

For the 2015/16 winter, these schemes will provide an extra 2.6 GW of capacity and could increase the average excess supply over peak demand to 5.1 percent, from around 1.2 percent, it said.

National Grid is proposing to extend the use of the measures for a further two winters.

"Given the uncertainty over whether there will be sufficient capacity margins available in the electricity market for balancing purposes, it is prudent that we explore options that help us do our job in transporting Britain's energy," Claire Spedding, balancing services manager at National Grid said.

The consultation closes on Aug. 14. (Reporting by Sarah McFarlane; editing by Susan Thomas)